Fizzboy7

As the years peel by, I am finding I dislike more and more car designs. It's getting harder to find models I like and would consider owning. I recall when I first got my license, there were about 30 cars I'd be happy owning. Now I can BARELY justify what I have or even consider which new car I'd want next.
This sound familar? Why am I getting so picky? My only guess is as I get older, I am becoming nostalgic and only liking styles and lines that were similar to the cars I first owned or lusted after. If that is the case, is that a sign I was most happy back then and am trying to relive more happy times? That sounds kind of sad, but I can't think of another reason for my criticalness.
Dicuss...

PhilipMSPT

iTrader: (5)

When you're younger, the world's your oyster, so anything that stands out is unique (even if it is gaudy or useless). A youthful personality wants uniqueness to help define themselves. Design is subjective.

As you age and learn the virtues of functionality, car design takes into account purposefulness, value, safety, and ease. You choose things not on how they look, but what they do. Design becomes objective.

Designs can be nice to look at. However, it may not fit our needs, especially when our needs require more attention and detail to others as well.

I best can relate it to fashion: just because it looks good on magazines, doesn't mean it'll look good on you...

RXSF

When you were older, were riced out civics and preludes and such part of the 30 cars?

I have always been one to like new things other than old so I tend to like everything Mercedes and Lexus currently make.

Fizzboy7

Hmmmm... interesting thoughts. Probably a combination of some of these things. I guess when you are new to something, it's always a little better. I think Sade had a song back in the 80's called, "Never as Good as the First Time."

Lil4X

It's probably a combination of several things.

• You have greater experience - having driven muscle cars for a few years, you discovered the bone-shaking ride, stiff low speed steering, and the heavy clutch may sound like must-haves in theory, but their actual "benefits" aren't worth the trade-offs during 98% of your real-world driving.
  
  Or, you've discovered that high-strung little "sports cars" in the traditional sense are really lousy daily drivers. Traditional English and European sporting marques of the '50's and '60's were originally intended for five-mile jaunts down a shaded country lane, not extended low-speed commutes or six hour flogs on the interstate . . . either of which will render them hors de combat for at least a month while you are replacing hard-to-find seals and bearings.
  
  
• Your needs have become more focused and refined - What you want and what you need become two separate entities. Of necessity you become a two-car family; a calm, quiet DD that's dead reliable, low maintenance, and comfortable for the daily grind, and a classic, lightweight, affordable roadster that provides thrills at 10/10ths without attracting every law officer in the state.
  
  It's maturity winning out over the excess of callow youth - You don't need to impress the girls at the local high school any more, you have a wife and three kids that need a minivan or an SUV to haul your brood to Little League, cheerleader practice, or on that summer vacation. You regularly haul a couple bales of groceries, a half dozen 2X4s, or take Marmaduke to the groomer. That doesn't work in the two-seater. Practicality begins to edge out performance very early on.
  
  
• You grew up - discovering that a real "sports" car is a weekend toy, not a mode of transportation. It displaces under two liters, seats two only slightly uncomfortably, and spends most of its time in the garage being tinkered with. It comes out on sunny Saturday mornings to play, preferably on a secret winding two-lane that stresses late braking, apexes, and shift points. You don't even care that it qualifies for a set of "classic" license plates, there is something decent and honorable in four speeds and a set of wire wheels. It has no stereo, the score to your morning romp is being played through a set of Borlas to the accompaniment of the whirr of a timing chain and the clatter of solid lifters.
  
  Is it nostalgia? Not really, it is simplicity, a single-purpose machine doing what it was designed to do; getting you from here to there with the space in between the most important part of the assignment. It's not about the destination, but the journey itself. Cosseted in our leather and wood drawing rooms on wheels, we may enjoy the strains of Chopin or Vivaldi through ten lab-standard speakers, surrounded in insulated air-conditioned and filtered silence by thousands of dollars worth of engineering designed to keep the outside out there; we may navigate by satellite, cruise by wire, even brake by computer, but we no longer drive. I miss that.

Welcome to middle age.

TRDFantasy

Well I still mostly hate the same cars now than as I did when I was younger. Also for the most part, I still like the same cars and same brands now compared to when I was younger. My tastes so far have not changed all that much as I've gotten older. Maybe in the future they might change, who knows.

mmarshall

When I was young, as a teen-ager in high school, I didn't necessarily follow the crowd. Like them, I enjoyed the American muscle/pony-cars of the period (I owned a Plymouth Barracuda). But, unlike many of them, I usually drove carefully and sensible. Also, unlike them, my interest and enjoyment was not just limited to big-engined torque monsters......I also liked a big, plush, quiet, soft-riding luxury car. I owned both a big Buick and a big Chrysler (both used) before I was 21. My dad, who worked at Philco-Ford after leaving the Army in 1969, used to bring home big, full-sized, company-owned Lincolns and Mercurys after work (his personal car was a compact Plymouth Valiant). He'd toss me the keys, go inside and relax, and I'd take the big plush dinosaurs out for a while and simply enjoy them, putting a few gallons of 100-octane leaded Premium in the tank to compensate (I could be trusted with these company cars, of course, as a safe driver, and never abused or wrecked one).

Basically, I've always liked these two vehicle classes.....performance cars and big luxury cars, but, unfortunately, the gas crises and CAFE/emission requirements of the 1970s soon put an end to both. American muscle-cars, of course, have returned, as the present Mustang GT, Camaro SS (which I've just reviewed), Challenger/Charger R/T, etc.... show, but, unfortunately, the really BIG American luxury cars are long-gone. Even the last, somewhat smaller descendents of them, (Town Car, DTS, Lucerne, etc...). are now on the brink of extinction....and they have been neglected, engineering-wise, by their manufacturers.

But, before you all think I'm going to go home and cry , my tastes, today, aren't quite the same they were in the past. As time went by, through the 70s, 80s, and 90s, I began to appreciate the quality of smaller, Japanese-Japanese-built cars (I really noticed that when I switched from Chrysler products to Mazdas in the early 80s), forgetting the often poorly-built and unreliable Detroit vehicles of the past (some of them literally drove me nuts with their constant problems and poor engineering). The plastic-body Saturns of the 1990s (and Saturn itself) impressed me as well....and, with my Saturn SL-2, I gave Detroit another chance.,...and wasn't disappointed. Then, the Lexus IS300 impressed me....I bought one, and joined CL. Since then, I've become a big fan of Subarus and their boxer engine/AWD systems...while, of course, staying in CL.

2002GGPIS3

I totally understand what you are talking about, I for one am a big fan of the cars of the 1990's and early 2000's that I feel had such better style then the cars of today...
Some examples include..

Lexus- 1997-2000 SC

Acura- 1991-2005 NSX

Mazda- 1993-1995 RX-7

Toyota- 1994-1998 Supra

Nissan- 1990-1996 300zx

Chevrolet- 1997-2004 Corvette

BMW- 1995-1999 M3

Porsche- 1995-1998 911 Carrera

I feel except for some Porsche's, and some exotics like Aston Martin and Lamborghini( Note Ferrari's in the 90's look far better then they do today), I overall don't like any of the current designs. So I don't lust after them like I did for the cars in the 90's. Heck even mundane cars like Honda Civic's looked better back then.

bnizzle87

^you made a great list of cars there 2002GGPIS3. the designs were simple and still look modern today. now, if only there were some that weren't beaten up and for sale... i still sometimes yearn after a 97 supra, which is what got me into cars in the first place.

Fizzboy7

My interests and car taste has also changed over the years. I was weaned on 1980's and 1990's big Ford and GM metal, SUV's, and station wagons, but as GM fell, I looked elsewhere. Discovered chic and cheerful VW (Passat: another car that has fallen) in the late 90's, then Audi (spoiled me with interiors and exclusivity), and now Lexus (modern, clean styling, luxury, and impeccable dealer experience). That's quite a trip around the automotive world. If I had the funds, I'd own 4-5 cars/trucks and get the best of what many companies offer. At least today we have a great variety to chose from. And for the future, I yearn for a hybrid sporty sedan that does not have any drivability compromises. I had the chance to drive an all-electric Mini last year and the silent, rocket-like acceleration was purely addiciting. If Lexus or Audi came up with something like that which doesn't break the wallet, I'd be all over it.

Fizzboy7

Very very well sorted out. It IS middle age, and it's an eye-opener. At this point in my life, I don't feel like I want to compromise as much. After working hard and paying my dues day in and day out, I want my car to do me right and reward me. I don't have time to make excuses for it, nor do I have time to be screwing with quality issues. This is much of what brought me to Lexus.

Fizzboy7

Marshall, well said. I feel your comments and can relate to them. Every car my grandma ever owned was named Cadillac Fleetwood. It doesn't matter how crappy that car became, it dug a huge imprint in my brain and that is something one cannot shake.
While I have you, your past love affair for large American iron is evident in your reviews. One give-away? When you list out the lack of body side moldings. ; ) I kid. I love that era, chrome and all!

G Star

iTrader: (2)

As youngsters, we didn't understand the meaning of quality and beauty, anything that moved was cool. I remember being satisfied with the most minimal cars but now it's all about high quality, security, comfort and beauty.

Lil4X

I have to laugh now about the cars I thought were the summit of cool about the time I achieved auto-awareness as a 13-14 year old. The chopped-top '51 Mercury customs with drastically lowered suspensions, about 4" cut out of the roof pillars, and a warmed-over flathead V8 exhaling through a pair of glas-packs, was as cool as it got. Every mouth-breather my age wanted one.

Fast forward fifty-odd years . . . I got a ride in my teenage dream car a couple years back - and although still beautiful, it was a huge disappointment. It was the definition of "rough rider" with about 2" of suspension travel, noisy, and REALLY slow. They didn't call them "lead sleds" for nothing. There was plenty of extra weight loaded on board by the lead filler used to smooth out the body. Straight line performance would get you soundly drubbed by a minivan today in an impromptu stoplight grand prix, and cornering was equivalent to that of a grocery cart. But they were beautiful . . . (sigh)



Of course, today's retro rods have the benefit of people like Hotchkis, Edlebrock, and FloMaster - who have brought modern technology to the hot rod scene, offering a way to turn a lead sled into a fairly modern automobile. That's the difference between a restoration and a recreation. I suppose it's a pretty effective way to show how far we've come from a time when your mufflers dragged the tar seams in the street and a 0-60 time under ten seconds was REALLY hot.

IS-SV

I won't dwell on the cars of the past, since they seem so archaic today, even though I enjoyed many.

About the only modern car with a somewhat retro shape that tickles my fancy is the 911 coupe (along the lines "as you become older").

And my daily driver taste has shifted towards sport sedans with lot of luxury content and SUVs for poor weather/heavy traffic/urban assault/home ownership duties/people hauling in back seat kind of usage. The modern sport sedans deliver what was previously called "supercar performance" combined with a incredible level of luxury/fuel efficiency/comfort/clean emissions. Those are just my preferences, realizing that others have different needs and requirements in vehicles as they "become older".